Firefox 3 Beta 5

The 5th beta for the next version of Mozilla Firefox web browser is out and available for download. If you haven’t tried Firefox 3 already, I highly recommend you do. In it’s fifth iteration, the beta is now much more stable, has support for plug-ins, and (in my experience) offers a significant speed boost, even over beta 4.

There are too many updates in Firefox 3 to list them all here. Some noteworthy new features include a new address bar that shows the URL and the title of the page, and a new download manager that lets you pause and resume downloads.

When you install beta 5, all your current favorites, plugins etc. should all be imported automatically. But, this is still a beta (i.e. for testing purposes only) so I cannot guarantee that everything will work perfectly. In any case, installing the beta will not delete your current installation of Firefox 2, so if it doesn’t work out, just uninstall the beta.

If you want to try it, Firefox 3 beta 5 can be downloaded here.

A better explanaiton of Firefox 3 can be found here although he talks abouut beta 4, not beta 5.

Cheap laptops set to stultify advancement?

And by “cheap,” I mean really cheap: sub $500 to be more precise. Following the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) program which set to put a laptop (at just $100 each) into the hands of children in third world nations, the market seems to be shifting its focus to cheap, low-end models. And believe me, these are very cheap and as low-end as you can possibly get.

The first product to lead the charge was the Asus Eee PC. Packing an Intel Celeron-M ULV processor at 630MHz, 512MB RAM, and up to 8GB of storage, the most expensive model sells for a measly $399. It has a 7″ screen with 800×480 resolution and LED backlights and runs Linux. To put things into perspective, even my mp3 player uses a dual-core chip at 660MHz from ARM, has 8GB of storage, and a 3″ LED backlit screen with 480×272 resolution. The Eee is the only laptop (if you can call it that) on the market in this category, but several products are set to follow, including the Everex Cloudbook and ECS G10IL.

Left to right: Asus Eee, Everex Cloudbook, ECS G10IL

All of those products have similar specs and will sell for under $500. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with producing these computers. Not everyone is rich, and this will help get technology into the hands of people who might otherwise never know what a computer is. In that regard, what these companies are doing is quite honorable.

What worries me is that when ordinary consumers start expecting ordinary laptops to start moving towards the $500 and lower end, this will have a negative impact on the future development of technology. It’s hard to put out the best products when your chief objective is to produce the cheapest ones, and innovation nearly impossible. Sony’s US SVP of Information Technology Products Division, Mike Abary, showed similar concerns referring to this as “a race to the bottom.” Sony’s Vaio line of laptops are among some of the most highly regarded on the market, and the proliferation of computers like the Eee could give companies like Sony which cater to the high-end a hard time.

Perhaps my fears are unfounded as it’s difficult to see these machines taking the lion’s share of the laptop market, but nonetheless, this is something worth noting.

I feel like it’s about time…

I might get in trouble for writing this. But if I do, I believe it just emphasizes my point.

My school likes to present itself as a top tier educational institution with the finest facilities, students, and faculty. Facilities, definitely; students, probably; faculty, maybe not. The latter is the reason why the vast majorities of students in my school attends “hagwons” (privately run educational institutions outside of school) or hire private tutors. No one ever voices their concern publicly in school, but students often talk amongst themselves about how useless their classes are because they don’t learn anything. When I ask people why they attend hagwons or get private tutors, most of them reply it is because the teacher in school doesn’t teach anything in class. I strongly feel that some teachers at my school need to reinforce their understanding of their respective subjects before attempting to teach it in class.

This isn’t just me, believe me, I’ve heard everyone I know say something along those lines at one time or another. Perhaps the students are exaggerating, but quite frankly, I get the impression that some of the teachers don’t truly know their subject matter half the time. Their lectures consist mainly of reciting the textbook. Ask a hard question and their answer is “I’ll get back to you later on that” and rarely do.

Just today, my science teacher said that the Kinetic Molecular Theory of Gases contradicts Graham’s Law of Effusion. The teacher even went on to explain why. That teacher was wrong.

The Kinetic Molecular Theory of Gases has five postulates. The one in concern: the average kinetic energy of the molecules is proportional to the absolute temperature. At any given temperature the molecules of all gases have the same average kinetic energy.

Graham’s Law of Effusion: the effusion rate of a gas is inversely proportional to the square root of its molar mass. At identical pressure and temperature, lighter gases effuse more rapidly than heavier ones. (i.e. lighter gases move faster than heavier ones at the same temperature and pressure)

So what was the “contradiction” here? If all gases have the same kinetic energy, how can lighter gases effuse faster than heavier ones? The teacher made the mistake of thinking that equal average kinetic energies meant equal velocities. A mistake a student might make, but not one a teacher of an AP course should ever make. Kinetic energy is determined by two variables: mass and velocity. Knowing this, there should be no contradiction at all. In fact, Graham’s Law follows only because the Kinetic Molecular Theory holds true. Since all gases have the same average kinetic energy at a given temperature, if a gas lighter it must have a higher velocity than a heavier one in order to have the same kinetic energy at the same temperature and pressure.

That’s just one example of many similar events.

Ironically enough, some of these teachers also give out the hardest tests and discourage students from attending hagwons or getting private lessons, blaming the students’ low grades on the lack of time spent “studying” and doing homework because they go to hagwons. What do they think we do at hagwons? Throw parties? Students are obviously pushed for time when they have to re-learn what they were supposed to learn in class, and do homework for school, do homework for hagwon, study for tests etc. Additionally, some of these teachers grade very harshly - taking points off for the most minor errors, which sometimes aren’t even errors - exacerbating the problem with grades.

I don’t know if the teachers know, but the students to talk about this. A lot. Obviously, it’s when there’s no one else around to overhear. I bet they do know though. The real reason why the “English only” policy is enforced so strictly - that it is beyond rational - at my school is probably because the teachers don’t want the students criticizing them in Korean. It’s just like a dictatorship where the government won’t accept any form of criticism from the people, so it abuses its power and instead enforces censorship and oppression.

I’m not saying all the teachers at my school are like this; just some. I don’t even know why I broke the code of silence and took the time to write this. Perhaps I was just so frustrated at the hypocrisy and irony of my school. In the end, someone has to break the ice if there’s to be any hope for the school to make improvements

August Rush: A musical journey at the speed of sound

 

I saw this movie just a few days ago although it came out in November, 2007. For one reason or another, I’d continuously put off watching the movie despite the fairly good reviews it was receiving. August Rush is an urban fantasy and you won’t fully appreciate this movie unless you approach it with an open mind, because some parts are quite unrealistic. For instance, even if you were a musical prodigy like Mozart, I doubt you could simply pick up a guitar for the first time and play it like a pro after a few hours of practice without any “musical knowledge,” teach yourself musical notes in a day, and write your own symphony after 6 months. The plot is also quite plain without any major twists or complications.

The acting in this movie is absolutely brilliant. Freddie Highmore, who plays August Rush (a.k.a. Evan Taylor) does a great job, but I thought the real star of the show - while not the protagonist - was Robin Williams. This is the first time I’ve seen him in an antagonist role and the change, while surprising at first, was actually quite refreshing.

While the acting and cinematography were both great, I believe that the score alone is reason enough to see this movie. The music is simply beautiful. I loved how the movie interwove segments of classical and rock music together seamlessly. This has a curious effect, since the last two things you’d expect to mix are classical and rock. It can’t be fully explained with words; you have to listen to truly experience it. I wasn’t surprised at the end to see that one of the composers for the OST was Hans Zimmer, who composed the scores for some of my favorite movies such as Gladiator and Black Hawk Down.

If you’re not watching to poke holes in the plot - there definitely are some logical flaws - this urban fairy tale is definitely worth picking up the next time you go to rent a movie. Even if you hate the plot, the soundtrack will make it worth your while.

Image: lulu4792 on flickr

Jumper: I recommend you “jump” over this one

I saw the movie “Jumper” over the weekend despite the lukewarm reviews that it was receiving, having faith that something from the director of “The Bourne Identity” couldn’t be all that bad. And it wasn’t. It wasn’t particularly great either. This is one of those movies that you go to see bacause you really have nothing better to do, and probably will not see again. If I had to give “Jumper” a score, I would give it 6/10. Hayden Christensen put on a decent performance in this movie; better than “Star Wars” at least. Samuel Jackson was also acceptable. But again, Christensen, Jackson, and the rest of the cast were nothing spectacular to see and probably won’t be receiving any awards some time soon.

It sounds like I’m throwing this movie in the gutter, but that really isn’t what I’m trying to do. What added to my disappointment is that the idea behind the movie was actually quite original, but was so poorly executed that it left so much more to be desired. The plot revolves around David Rice (Christensen), a Jumper or basically someone who can teleport, and Roland (Jackson), a Paladin or someone who hunts Jumpers for some religious cause. In short, Paladins believe that the Jumpers’ ability to teleport is only fit for God so they hunt the Jumpers down and kill them. OK, so it’s not that amazing, but there were some elements that I felt were underdeveloped, and would have added greatly to the plot had they been.

For instance, Rice’s mother is a Pladin and she abandoned Rice when she discovered his ability since the only other choice was to kill him. This is interesting, but Rice’s mother only shows up in the movie for about three minutes. It would have been so much more interesting to have the tension between Rice and his mother, than with some random black man with white hair. As another example, Rice meets another Jumper called Griffin (Jamie Bell) who tells him that Paladins have been hunting Jumpers since the medieval period, and that there are other Jumpers out there. Well then, why are Rice and Griffin the only Jumpers in the movie? Couldn’t the fight between Junpers and Paladins have been on a larger scale?

Instead, “Jumper” ends up being cheap romance. Rice has a crush on a girl called Millie (Rachel Bilson). Roland takes her as a hostage to bring Rice to him. Rice saves the girl and they live happily ever after. Completely unoriginal.

The idea behind this movie had the potential to be a blockbuster hit, but its poor execution condemns it to fleeting success in the box office, and then oblivion.

Glimpse the future: surface computing

People (or at least those interested enough) like to argue about which one of the two major computer operating systems is better: Microsoft Windows or Apple’s Mac OS. There are of course, compelling arguments for either side. For instance, Windows is much more compatible seeing as how they have over 90% of the market, and Mac OS is more stable and secure. But at the end of the day, you’ve got to say that they’re pretty much the same. This whole concept of an interface with windows, icons, and a pointer is the same old stuff we’ve been dealing with for the past couple decades. It just isn’t very intuitive to first time users. But all this is about to change in the near future, with the introduction of interfaces that even my grandma could figure out how to use.

I expect most of you have either seen the movie minority report starring Tom Cruise, in which we see him manipulate a computer by dragging windows and pushing buttons projected into the air with his hands. Well, fiction has just become fact…ok, not quite, but it’s pretty close. The computers of the future will be intuitive, simple, and accessible so that anyone can start using them without reading some sort of instruction manual.

In the following video you’ll see Jeff Han introduce a fully touch based user interface at TED.

So that was 2006. We’ve seen an application of such an interface in Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, but niether are on the scale shown in the video. Microsoft was the first to debut a product which is more or less identical to what Jeff Han showed you. It’s called the Microsoft Surface and it’s the first commercially available surface computer (like you’d never have guessed fro the name). Below is a demo from CES 2008.

As you can see, this technology opens up a whole new era of computing in which interaction between humans and computers will be almost natural and most intuitive. This is how we should be interacting with machines from now on. Unfortunately, at the moment, people can only preview the technology in Microsoft approved hotels and casinos. Even if you own an approved hotel or casino, it’ll cost you $10,000 per unit. But it’s only a matter of time before this technology makes it into the broader consumer market.

You can find out more about Microsoft Surface at Microsoft’s website. By the way, the Surface webpage works best when viewed in Internet Explorer 7 (Surprise!). If you’re using Firefox or some other browser, you may experience slowdowns.

Motorola headed downhill?

It’s not too long ago that Motorola swept the cell phone market with their ultra slim RAZR. In fact, the RAZR is the very device that started our obssession with slim devices, which didn’t just end with mobile phones. Today, everything from mp3 players to TVs need to have a slim profile to even catch the consumer’s eye. But it seems now that Motorola’s success is coming to an end with their market share (in the cell phone market) falling drastically in merely one year from 22.4% in Q4 2006 to 12.9% in Q4 2007.

Now, Motorola is looking to sell off its failing cell phone division. According to Engadget major potential buyers - such as Samsung, LG, and Sony Ericsson - showed no interest in making the purchase stating that Motorola would not make a good supplement with many overlapping areas and little to gain.

Motorola’s pitiful state was most evident at their Mobile World Congress 2008 (MWC) showing which took place earlier this week in Barcelona. Now, when you show up at an exhibition like MWC, it’s common sense that you bring the crown jewels of you product lineup for the year. Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson, and Nokia all brought some pretty amazing, innovative products to Barcelona; making me think that 2008 is going to be a great year for the cell phone market. On the other hand, all Motorola managed to bring with them was an updated version of a current product and two dull, low end models (shown below).

I can feel their embarrassment sitting here writing this in Korea. Apparently, Motorola feels the same way as they pulled their MWC 2008 teaser video that promised what people speculated to be a mobile Internet device.

In my mind, one of the reasons for Motorola’s decline is their failure to innovate and bring original, high performance products to the market. The RAZR’s successor - with the rather unoriginal name of RAZR2 - turned out to be nothing more than the original RAZR with a facelift and some minor updates like a larger external display. Today, Motorola is the only cell phone producer that has not produced, or at least announced the arrival of a full touch screen device. Motorola’s failure to go along with the major shift towards touch screen devices is yet another example their inability to innovate.

Still, I can’t say everything is Motorola’s fault. Their situation goes to show just how demanding today’s consumers are; continuously demanding completely original products and refusing to be satisfied with just an upgrade for very long. Yet, I can perfectly understand why. In a world that moves along at a blistering pace - especially the technological world - people have become so accustomed to change that not changing seems, well, wrong. Today, the inability to constantly adapt to an ever changing environment is seen as incompetence, and stragglers are simply left behind without a second glance.

It’s no wonder then, in a most competitive and merciless world of businesses and corporations, that Motorola is being eaten up by the competition.

Pictures: Engadget

More on blogging

At the beginning of the school year, before my AP Literature class started blogging as a whole, we went into the woods behind my school, and in small groups video taped ourselves laying out our personal goals for our blogging project.

So how close am I to achieving my goals? I really can’t say since I don’t remember exactly what I said on the tape in the first place. Still, I remember saying that I wanted to find and connect to more experienced people - even professionals - in my desired field. Well, in that regard, I believe I have failed spectacularly for one simple reason: I have yet to choose a field.

Right now, I’m treating my blog not as a place to explore my passion, but simply as a place to write about  something - anything. Blogging is more of a writing exercise where I can practice organic writing. But hey, maybe all those random thoughts will amount to something in the end.

Retrospect

Six months. That’s roughly the amount of time that has passed since I was pushed into taking the AP Literature class and started (or was forced to start may be more accurate) blogging. To be honest, being asked to write blog entries in an by the teacher in an AP class was - for me, and probably most of my classmates - one of those “what the?” moments. Really, how many teachers have you met that deviate so completely from the standard procedures of school?

So, blogging. I admit that I haven’t been the most diligent blogger, and definitely not the most consistent, often writing in disjointed bursts. I might do three posts in two days, then have nothing for another couple of weeks. Similarly, the subject matter has not been very consistent either, with my mind seemingly wandering randomly from one topic to another. Looking back, I see that I have done quite a bit of wandering, writing about literature, business, politics, religion/philosophy, and technology. The truth is that I don’t really know what I want to write about.

Or maybe, just maybe, depite my near twelve years of learning, I still don’t know enough about any one subject to write continuously about it. I can confidently say that I probably know more math than the average high school student, but no one wants to read about the fundamental theorem of calculus right?

Anyhow, I feel that this whole blogging experience has helped me more than anyone who bothered to read whatever I wrote.  I feel like my writing has improved - somewhat.

Overlooked - Samsung YP-P2

It’s no secret that the iPod has dominated the world market for mp3 players. In the US over 70% of mp3 players sold are iPods. While the iPod has not yet managed to gain such market share in Korea, and presumably Asia in general, I can definitely notice increasing numbers of those characteristic white earbuds on the streets of Korea.

There has been a new shift towards touch screen devices in the past few quarters with the introduction of the iPhone and LG’s Prada phone leading the way. While they certainly are not the first devices to make use of a tough screen, they are the first to implement touch as the only user interface. Following phones were mp3 players. Now, many think the iPod Touch is the first touch screen mp3, but that’s not true. Samsung actually managed to put out the first touch screen mp3: the YP-P2 (I’ll just call it P2 from here).

Despite the early release, the P2 has been pushed into the shadows by the dominance of the iPod Touch and its name. Or maybe it’s just my school which has more American influences than Korea on average; I certainly see more iPods at school than anywhere else.

So I want to introduce to you the P2 which, in my view, is superior to the iPod Touch in certain aspects. I’ve been using the P2 for about 3 months now so I have a fair idea about its highs and lows.

Like the Touch, the P2 uses a touch screen as its main interface; but you knew that already. The little thing below the screen that looks like the home button on the Touch is not a button. It’s just a LED status indicator. Unlike the Touch, the P2 offers some hardware buttons along the sides. On the left are a play/pause switch and a hold switch. On the right are volume controls. The addition of hardware controls for the most basic functions on a touch screen device is very welcome indeed, since it allows the user to control the device with out having to look at it after some familiarization. So you won’t have to take the P2 out of your pocket every time you need to pause or change the volume.

The user interface on the P2 is decent enough, although nowhere near as good as the UI on the Touch. The P2 is about 1cm shorter than the Touch in both length and width. The screen also uses a 16:9 ratio so it’s quite narrow (although this is good for viewing movies). As a result, the buttons shown on the screen of the P2 are quite small so the whole UI takes some getting used to. But people with fat fingers are out of luck. All in all, I doubt any device has an interface as revolutionary and intuitive as the UI on the iPhone/Touch. That’s a fact and I won’t waste words arguing against it. Moving on…

Although the P2 doesn’t offer web browsing over wi-fi, it does offer Bluetooth 2.0 connectivity. The P2 can stream music wirelessly to stereo Bluetooth headsets (up to two headsets can be connected at one time), and exchange files with other Bluetooth capable devices. Finally - my personal favorite - the P2 can connect to your cell phone if it has Bluetooth. Once connected, you can make and receive calls using the P2. Now, you won’t have to pull your earphones out and dig your phone out of you pocket should someone call you while you’re listening to music on the go.

Additional noteworthy features include an built in dictionary (English-Korean, Korean-English, English-English) and the ability to connect to a computer as a mass storage device, meaning you can just drag and drop files without using a program such as iTunes.

Still, I believe an mp3 player is garbage, regardless of design or whatever additional feature it may have, if the sound quality is bad. And it is in this department where the P2 really shines. Most mp3 players use some sort of sound enhancer such as SRS or BBE. The P2 uses DNSe II developed by Samsung itself. The P2 also offers a 7-band user adjustable equalizer so the user can tune the sound just how he wants it: a true rarity among digital media players. Most only offer 5-band customization and the iPod doesn’t even have a user adjustable equalizer at all. In general the sound from the P2 has more depth and sounds more natural and the P2 is probably one of the better sounding players on the market along with products from Creative, Cowon, and iRiver. Products from all of these companies produce rich sound.

To conclude, I think the P2 is just as good an alternative to the iPod Touch. The P2 is more for those who stress function and performance over anything else. The P2 offers both in a minimalist design that looks every bit as good as an iPod.